The Heart of Your Home

An impressive, witty dance of materials with detailed function is the grounding for the kitchen and interior architecture company Melanie Craig LTD.

The team has been creating iconic persona inside homes throughout New Zealand over the past 13 years. Melanie Craig LTD’s design philosophy is “Design your kitchen and then wrap the walls around it”.

The aim is to design your home with its appropriate demeanor.

Over the mountain from Wanaka

This home sits nestled in one of the most amazing towns to be in, particularly in autumn – Arrowtown.

A visual feast of colours surround this small village – mustards, burnt orange, lime green, balanced with the strong, deep forest of the green-standing pines, all this surrounded by deep blues and violets falling off the nearby mountains.

Melanie’s design team, along with their groovy clients, created this fabulous environment in which they call home.

A simple yet effective layout which is commonly known as an ‘L shape kitchen.”

“L shape kitchens are traditionally quite boring, so it was our challenge to add a little spice so the kitchen sits effortlessly in the open-plan living area.”

The strong black steel lines, created by box section, make up the rangehood element, thus doubles as an easy display to enable personality into the room.

Cabinetry finished with a 30 percent lacquered blue hue, bringing in the depth of the mountains, and feature French oak, softens the kitchen space.

As the kitchen falls into the living space, you will notice the raised height of the cabinet. This is for several reasons. It creates an end to the kitchen, screening the bench mess from the living space. The oven is at an ergonomic height for use, without setting the oven into an oven tower, which would throw the entire balance of the kitchen.

Melanie Craig Design has a flagship studio on Helwick Street in Wanaka, however, you can see its award-winning designs throughout many New Zealand homes.

They visit their Christchurch cliental once a month, and if you’re renovating or building, you’re only a phone call away from having your home designed with you in mind.

Window love

As humans we’re pretty good at turning something very simple into a nightmare. For some of us, choosing and installing curtains is something we dread.

Whether it’s getting the correct measurements, knowing how to work with an awkward window, or getting lost as to which material to choose, we’re left scratching our heads and hoping for the curtain fairy to appear.

But actually, choosing curtains should be just as fun as any other part of your renovation or interior project, such as painting walls or accessorising your living space. Curtains are great for reducing glare, providing privacy, keeping the draughts out and the warmth in, protecting furniture and complementing window style.

While some homes have unsightly views which are best kept hidden away, others have spectacular views which simply need to be framed in the right way – just like how our hair complements and frames our face. Curtains should highlight and lead the viewer to the scenery beyond the glass.

Consider natural light and where it beams through your home because when the sun is flaring through your windows and heating up your living space, or if you’re trying to sleep and the light pours through, having the right curtain fabric is essential to suiting all types of luminosity at different times of the day.